1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of medical imaging, and, more particularly, to a two-dimensional (“2D”) visualization for rib analysis.
2. Description of the Related Art
High-resolution computed tomography (“CT”) volumes of the chest are commonly used to diagnose abnormalities in the ribs. Current technology provides CT volumes of the chest with at least 400 two-dimensional (“2D”) slices. Thorough evaluation of thoracic CT scans frequently requires physicians to identify and track the individual ribs structures in the volume data. This can be a tedious task as the ribs occupy multiple slices within the data. More precisely, the ribs typically cross through the axial planes at an oblique angle, thereby making their examination even more problematic. To analyze the CT volumes, the radiologist must scroll through all slices, and view the contents of the ribs while tracking the ribs through each slice. Also, given a rib in an arbitrary slice, the radiologist must scroll up and down to determine the number of the rib.
Given the three-dimensional (“3D”) segmentation of the ribs, a 3D view showing only the ribs and their contents is possible. This 3D view alleviates the necessity of tracking and scrolling through 2D slices. However, since in any single view, the ribs occlude one another, 3D navigation is of absolute necessity. This makes it necessary to have an interface to position and move the rendering camera. In addition, the three-dimensional modality requires the radiologist to view the same rib multiple times since the same region is rendered continuously.